


diamonds come from heat and pressure

by secretlyasummers



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Trans Character, but only like as a headcanon, yall get what i mean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 07:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20756750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretlyasummers/pseuds/secretlyasummers
Summary: Time travel lets Emma Frost revisit a part of her life that she perhaps might rather not.





	diamonds come from heat and pressure

**Author's Note:**

> The following is an old piece of writing of mine. It also doesn’t really fit with canon, by any means whatsoever, but I don’t care. I take just as much of canon as I like. The subtext here is ideally, very, very, very obvious.

“Hurry. We don’t have much time.”

“Was that a pun, darling?”

“Not funny.”

Cyclops and Emma Frost, along with a team of their fellow X-Men – Polaris, Wolverine, Domino, and Forge – shot through the air in the seats of the modified Blackbird. Their cloaking device was engaged, and the plane was practically invisible to the eye, let alone to radar and the more esoteric forms of detection that many of their foes had detected. They had to be. Someone picking up their presence here – nearly thirty years in their past – would be incredible damaging to the timestream.

Cyclops swiveled in his chair, passing the controls to Logan’s station. He had a deadly expression on his face. “We do this fast, and do this carefully. Minimal damage to the timestream. Hodge’s time machine had limited charges, so we know they only brought a few assassins through. And thanks to Forge’s hacking,” Cyclops nodded in his direction, “we know who they’re targeting.”

“Right, boss.” Domino was lazily tossing a knife in the air, catching it as it fell. “So, what’s the plan?”

“Teams of two. Lorna, Logan. You’re going to Alaska, to catch the Right before they can kill Alex and I as toddlers. Polaris, I assume that you can fly Logan there?”

“Faster than the blackbird, too,” she said.

“Good. Neena, Forge, after you drop Emma and I in Boston, you’re heading to New York. They’ll go after Logan, and while I know that Wolverine thinks he can handle himself—”

“Bub . . .”

“—we can’t leave it up to chance.”

Domino caught the knife. “Good thing chance is my specialty.”

The X-Men promptly split up, Polaris cocooning Wolverine in a bubble of magnetic force, and then rocketing west, heading to the old Summers family home outside Anchorage. Forge then poured power into the engines of the Blackbird, rocketing far past the speed of sound, only pausing as they hovered invisibly over the scenic estates of the Frost family, outside Boston, before accelerating once more, leaving Emma and Cyclops alone.

They paused for a second, Cyclops surveying the scene, while Emma was lost in thought, surrounded by scenes that were at once familiar and different. It had been a long time since Emma had visited the Frost home, and it had never been, even in it’s prime, a place that she liked, by any means. She had run away from home at an early age, and never looked back. The Emma Frost that everyone knew – the White Queen of the Hellfire Club, the Headmistress of the Xavier School, the co-leader of mutantkind and proud partner of its foremost son – was a far cry from the shy, angsty persons that had done anything that her father had asked her, and hidden so much from everyone for so long.

“Emma, can you shield us?” Cyclops looked back at her, his visor gleaming. “We don’t want people noticing us.”

She nodded, bringing up a finger to her forehead and sending out a psychic pulse. “Done. We’re invisible to the naked eye, now. But the Right’s killer will have psychic screening.”

“I know. But we know where he’s going. You know your old home, Ems. What’s the fastest route to your room?”

“Scott, you know that I don’t want—”

“Emma, trust me.” He grabbed her hand, squeezed it once. “It’s never mattered to me, Emma. I love you the way you are. And I’d much rather have you alive then dead.”

“ . . . fine,” she said, uncharacteristically hesitant. “This way.”

They wove their way through the gardens, picking up the pace when they encountered a pair of gardeners, unconscious. They reached the house at a run, still invisible to the staff, and slipping through a back door, that Emma knew from her childhood was left open. She could hear the staff, and her sisters, the sounds so unfamiliar yet struck chords in her memory all the same. Adrienne snarking at her friends on her phone, Cordelia blaring rap albums loudly, poorly singing along to the lyrics.

“Where were you at—”

“Asleep, probably,” Emma said, pausing in the foyer to get her bearings. “I took a lot of naps at the time, just taking breaks from everything. Everyone. My room was upstairs.”

They took the stairs two at a time, ducking down at a motion of Scott’s hand when they found another unconscious servant. The Right’s assassin, temporal armor gleaming, held a laser rifle in his hand, sweeping the hallways, looking for Emma’s childhood room.

“Get ready to go diamond, Ems,” Cyclops said. “This should be quick.”

Cyclops lunged forwards, hand reaching for his visor, but the assassin was quicker, combat rolling as soon as he heard Scott, dodging the optic blast just barely. He returned fire, laser fire grazing Scott, throwing him to the side. Emma ran at him, shifting just her arm to diamond form. When the laser rifle hit it refracted wildly, throwing beams of searing hot light across the hallway. Shifting entirely to diamond, dropping their psychic invisibility, she threw a punch, that the assassin caught on his rifle. Dropping it, he grabbed a knife, it’s nanite edge humming, and jabbed at her. Emma sidestepped, let the assassin tumble forwards, unbalanced – and hit directly into a recovered Cyclops’ optic blast.

“I’ll take him back, prep for the pick up,” Cyclops said. “Thanks, Emma.”

She didn’t reply, slowly stepping towards one of the doors.

“Emma, you can’t—”

“I don’t really care about the time travel rules.” Her fingers traced the engraved nameplate, the words ‘Christian Frost’ carefully mounted on the door. “I think I have to do this. Or that I always did it.”

“Emma—”

She ignored him, slowly pushing the door open. The boy that was sleeping in the bed across the room was slight and slim, blonde hair cropped close and short. Emma swept up her cape in one hand, and sat down on the bed, next to him, waking him with a psychic pulse and a tap on his forehead.

“What is . . .” ‘Christian’ Frost said groggily, confused.

“I can’t say what, exactly, is happening.” Emma’s normal grace and composure was rapidly leaving her. “I’m not from here, or now.”

Christian sat up, his mind almost whirring as he connected the dots. “You’re from a different time. Like in Captain America adventures.”

Emma nodded.

“And you – and I, I mean – we, we are . . .”

A slow smile grew on Emma’s face. “I am. That’s why I’m here, Christian.” She paused, a sour expression on her face for a fraction of a second. “You’ll find a better alternative to that, soon. I just wanted to tell you . . .”

She searched for the words, for a second, then another. “It gets better. It’s a cliché, but it’s a true one. You find happiness. You get out of here, you make a way for yourself, you manage to make yourself into the person you know you are. It takes a long time, and a lot of struggle. But you’re going to be happy.”

“I . . . I will?” The child was incredulous.

“You will.” Emma’s smile became a sad one, and she raised her hand to her temple. “I know, really well. And I wish I could let you remember all of this.”

When Christian Frost woke, hours later, all she could remember was the nicest dream, and a sense of contentment and bravery.


End file.
